ArticleBMC infectious diseases2021
Interleukin 6 as a marker of severe bacterial infection in children with sickle cell disease and fever: a case-control study.
Article in BMC infectious diseases, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Interleukin-6 as a sepsis biomarker in neonatal and pediatric care: A retrospective real world cohort study.European journal of pediatrics · 2026Article
- Article
- Clinical utility of combined serum IL-6, PCT, and SAA assays for early diagnosis and severity stratification of neonatal sepsis.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Bacteriophage-derived endolysins restore antibiotic susceptibility in β-lactam- and macrolide-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae infections.Molecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Utility of Cytokine Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Pediatric Pyogenic Musculoskeletal Infections.Open forum infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Role of Inflammatory Cytokines in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Development of Atherosclerosis: A Review.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Review
- Future Biomarkers for Infection and Inflammation in Rheumatoid Arthritis.Journal of inflammation research · 2023Review
- Risk-score based strategy to minimize antibiotic exposure in children with sickle cell disease and fever.Infection · 2022Article
- Increased Cytokine Levels Assist in the Diagnosis of Respiratory Bacterial Infections or Concurrent Bacteremia in Patients With Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2022Article
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13 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEtiological diagnosis of fever in children with sickle cell disease (SCD) is often challenging. The aim of this study was to analyze the pattern of inflammatory biomarkers in SCD febrile children and controls, in order to determine predictors of severe bacterial infection (SBI).
methodsA prospective, case-control study was carried out during 3 years, including patients younger than 18 years with SCD and fever (cases) and asymptomatic steady-state SCD children (controls). Clinical characteristics and laboratory parameters, including 10 serum proinflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12p70, IL-17a, IFN-γ and TNF-α) and comparisons among study subgroups were analyzed.
resultsA total of 137 patients (79 cases and 58 controls) were included in the study; 78.5% males, median age 4.1 (1.7-7.5) years. Four cases were diagnosed with SBI, 41 viral infection (VI), 33 no proven infection (NPI) and 1 bacterial-viral coinfection (the latter excluded from the subanalyses). IL-6 was significantly higher in patients with SBI than in patients with VI or NPI (163 vs 0.7 vs 0.7 pg/ml, p < 0.001), and undetectable in all controls. The rest of the cytokines analyzed did not show any significant difference. The optimal cut-off value of IL-6 for the diagnosis of SBI was 125 pg/mL, with high PPV and NPV (PPV of 100% for a prevalence rate of 5, 10 and 15% and NPV of 98.7%, 97.3% and 95.8% for those prevalences rates, respectively).
conclusionWe found that IL-6 (with a cut-off value of 125 pg/ml) was an optimal marker for SBI in this cohort of febrile SCD children, with high PPV and NPV. Therefore, given its rapid elevation, IL-6 may be useful to early discriminate SCD children at risk of SBI, in order to guide their management.
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